On a recent business trip to Charlotte, NC I was able to sneak away for an exceptional whitewater paddling getaway. After completing two morning meetings, I drove Northwest of the city to the US National Whitewater Center (USNWC). This is a fairly new outdoor sports facility that is tucked amongst the pines and hills along the banks of the Catawba River and provides the main training base for many of the US Olympic canoe and kayak team members. For the rest of us, it’s simply an amazing place to recreate and they offer rafting, climbing, ropes courses, zip lines, flat water canoeing, standup paddle boarding, mountain biking, and for when you done for the day, two bars and a full service restaurant.
The facility is built around a massive man made river that is divided into three concrete whitewater runs containing rapids of class 1-5 in intensity. The current is created by a continually circulating flow of water powered by a massive pump house. The pumps are built into a structure that act as a dam and pulls the water up from the lower lake area at the bottom of the whitewater runs, back to a lake at the top – it’s a pretty cool feat of engineering.
The facility is built around a massive man made river that is divided into three concrete whitewater runs containing rapids of class 1-5 in intensity. The current is created by a continually circulating flow of water powered by a massive pump house. The pumps are built into a structure that act as a dam and pulls the water up from the lower lake area at the bottom of the whitewater runs, back to a lake at the top – it’s a pretty cool feat of engineering.
During that earlier visit I attempted to pack an entire day of activities into a brief 3-hour period leading up to a 6 PM flight back to Colorado, so I really had to work fast. I got a multi-sport pass which allows you to “do everything” on-site, or at least try to. When I arrived I had an hour to kill so I did a few rather challenging high ropes courses. These are essentially obstacle courses poised high in the trees and require you to stretch, jump, and climb around on cargo nets while dangling 40-feet in the air from an overhead safety line. My favorite part of the ropes course was a double zip line that traversed back and forth across a deep gorge. That activity didn’t have a wait and so I did it multiple times.
Mid-afternoon I met up with my guide for what they call a “Rodeo Raft” trip. After a quick safety meeting, me and four other paddlers were crammed into a raft no bigger than a dinner table and set off into the rapids. This boat was so small that our legs had to be intertwined to help keep us from slipping out. And when I say small I mean it, if I leaned over I could reach the front and back of the boat at the same time. The reason they call it a rodeo boat is that it is designed to surf the large standing waves found within this concrete river. The trip included three runs down the calmer side of the facility (class 1-4) and then a single trip down the Olympic run (class 3-5). We warmed up by working our way through a few smaller drops while our guide used the time to check out our ability to work as a team. If you’ve ever rafted you know that the game is for all aboard to use the immense power of the river to move the boat where you want to go because you just can’t fight the river. We were working really well together and so he put us into our first big drop which was a crescent shaped, 5-foot deep hole that cut across the entire river channel. We were working together pretty well and we even got the boat to surf on the glassy wave. However, just as we were getting the hang of it, our guide forced the edge of the boat into the crest of the wave and what was up was now “upside-down”. We were quickly tossed from the boat and swimming for the edges. After regrouping, we got back in and proceeded to run an exciting stretch of water with 6-8 tightly packed drops ending in a slack water lake at the bottom. After each run you simply paddle the boat onto a massive conveyor belt and you are lifted back up to the lake back at the starting point. We did two more runs on the calmer channels and then headed onto our biggest challenge.
The Olympic Run
| The last run of the day was an intense trip down the Olympic whitewater training course. It’s probably about ¼ mile in length, includes 10 or 12 tightly spaced rapids, and is an extremely intense experience to say the least. The goal for the Olympic paddler is to negotiate the entire run top to bottom while passing through a series of colored gates that are suspended above the river. Each gate is designated as either an upstream or downstream obstacle and must be run in a specific sequence. To add complexity, the gates are staggered to either side of the river channel and often require them to stop and paddle back up stream or across the intense current to complete the sequence. |
Each run is judged by the paddler’s elapsed time and there are deductions made for touching the boat, body, or paddle to a hanging gate or missing one entirely. The boats racers use are designed for maneuverability, speed, and are really tippy. Looking the course over I could barely imagine negotiating the rapids successfully let alone attempt to follow the precise requirements of the course itself. In my younger years I raced both whitewater canoe and kayak but I never faced a whitewater course like this. The grade from top to bottom was very steep, the channel was extremely narrow, and the waves and recirculating holes were ferocious to say the least – this was something completely different than anything I had ever done.
Thankfully, we didn’t have to worry about running gates on our trip, we just had to keep the boat upright. Our run started out fast, and once into the first rapid, the boat picked up speed quickly. We blew through the first few intense holes and pulled out in an eddy, an area of slack water to the side of a rapid, to take a quick breather. Our guide set us up to surf a massive wave right below a large drop but we approached it too quickly. The entire front of the boat was plunged deep into the green tongue of water coming over the drop and we were quickly scrambling to the back of the raft to avoid a full cartwheel end over end. Somehow we managed to keep the boat upright but we were not set up well for the next set of drops. The guide instructed us to paddle hard and we quickly pulled into another eddy amidst the largest rapid on the run, rated at class 5. The water here was violent and the boat raised up and down three or four feet in the pulsating back current. Without notice, the guide stuck the nose of the boat out into current and we immediately flipped tossing everyone into the churning eddy. Safety lines came from every direction and we were all being fished out to avoid swimming into the large drop below us. I was at the crest of the drop and my legs were actually out in the main stream.
I was looking over my shoulder and down into an 8-foot deep hole of churning whitewater. Since I was stuck out at the very end of the rope I was forced to wait for two other guys to climb up the lines. I was tempted to just let go and ride out the next two drops but the safety crew was yelling to not swim the drop, in hindsight I should have just let go as it would have been way more fun. Instead I just had to hang on while being pulled underwater from time to time. I’m sure it was less than a minute but it seemed like I was out there forever getting throttled in the current. It sounds scary but from previous experience I knew to stay calm, hang on, and try to enjoy the immensity of the moment because it is quite exhilarating.
A day to SUP
On this trip, I decided to fly one of my SUPs out to Charlotte and take on the whitewater in a more vertical fashion. After blowing up my Boardworks Surf SHUBU I paid my $25 water fee and hit the river. The first couple runs were an absolute disaster and I am glad I didn’t have my camera on. I had been on some moving water (the town run through Fort Collins) but never on real whitewater. Having to quickly learn how to stay steady in all of that turbulent water and big drops took a couple of hours of constantly falling off the board. It was exhausting and hard not to be a little embarrassed but that’s how you learn folks.
| By the time I set my camera up I was getting much better at staying on the board for most of an entire run. I was doing my best to not paddle too far down the warm-up channel because the bottom of the run has a long class 3-4 rapid that I just didn’t feel comfortable trying. If you watch the video you’ll see that my hand was finally forced into running it when I fell off the board at the top of the rapid. It provided me the opportunity to see that entire stretch up close and personal. It turned out to be pretty fun but I didn’t have the energy or confidence to run it a second time. Maybe on my next trip. |
Pictures from my SUP runs
I hate that I have to travel 1,000-miles to find a turkey.
I ran an upper stretch of the river about 12-14 times over the afternoon and on my final run managed to break off my center fin. I took that as a sign that my day in the whitewater should be coming to an end. I pulled off above the big rapid and headed down the hill to enjoy some calm flat water paddling. I enjoyed a mile or so of paddling on the Catawba River and saw lots of wildlife including turtles as big as serving dishes, Blue Herons, and even a large turkey along the shore. My time on this trip was really rewarding and I feel I came a long way with my skills in the whitewater. I am looking forward to heading out onto the lower Poudre River once the water begins to rise at the end of May. More to come, stay tuned.
Getting to the US National Whitewater Center From downtown Charlotte it's a quick an easy drive out to the center. The website below has current water conditions, trail information, and pass fees. U.S. National Whitewater Center 5000 Whitewater Center Parkway Charlotte, NC 28214 (704) 391-3900 usnwc.org |